Friday, October 16, 2009

The mere mention of the Westboro Baptist Church in any form of the media is a victory for the gay-bashing anti-Semite demented hate mongers. I'm sorry but I will risk being struck by a bolt of lightning by saying the group will be protesting at a number of San Diego area churches Saturday night.

Since 1955, Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) has taken forth the precious from the vile, and so is as the mouth of God (Jer. 15:19). In 1991, WBC took her ministry to the streets, conducting 41,226 peaceful demonstrations (to date) opposing the fag lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth. In response, america bombed WBC; & burned WBC on 8-2-2008. God is america's enemy: 5,200 dead soldiers; $11 trillion+ in national debt.

America crossed the line on June 26, 2003, when the Supreme Court (the conscience of the nation) ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that we must respect sodomy. WBC believes her gospel message to be this world's last hope.

Nothing ignites my outrage button more than any proclaimed religious or political group claiming God is on their side. I really go ballistic when they say God hates America. Or anyone, for that matter. The God I believe in is more compassionate than theirs. Na Na NaNa Na.

Before I continue, it must be clear that Westboro Baptist Church is in no way, no how, officially recognized by the Baptist Church organizations.

In an advance story today about the announced protests, The San Diego Union-Tribune glossed over WBC's nasty record and chronicled how local churches are arming themselves for protests as well as a wave of criminal acts against what once was a private, sacred sanctuary.

It tells how the Rock Church in the Point Loma suburb, one of the group's focus, every several months trains 100 security volunteers to prepare for a gunman attack, kidnapping at its nursery or disorderly outsiders.

“You'd think it's the most safe place in the world, and yet priests have been shot at the altar,” said the Rev. Wayne Sanders of St. John's Episcopal Church in Fallbrook.

Sanders was one of about 50 people to attend an interfaith security conference in August at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Poway hosted by the Anti-Defamation League.

Leaders from Christian churches, synagogues, Buddhist temples and the Church of Scientology learned about the importance of reporting suspicious behavior and forging relationships with local law enforcement.

Mary Ferro, the faith center liaison for North County-based Interfaith Community Services, helped organize the event.

“One faith center had people stealing out of purses while people were at Communion,” Ferro said. “One had break-ins in automobiles during a series of services. Another one had vandalism and teenagers using drugs or alcohol on the grounds.”

St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in RanchoPeñasquitos has been burglarized twice in the past five months. Just two weeks ago, gardening equipment was stolen from an outdoor shed. Before that, a 45-pound bell made of copper and silver was stolen.

“We're vulnerable,” said Rector Wilfredo Crespo, who is buying security cameras for the property. “I think it's the worst thing you can do to a church community. We're here to help those who don't have work and try to support them.”

San Rafael Parish, a 3,000-family Catholic congregation in Rancho Bernardo, invested in a camera system a year ago after teenagers defaced the property with graffiti. Security guards now roam the grounds at night, paid for by the church and neighboring businesses.

The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church is a small virulently homophobic, anti-Semitic hate group that regularly stages protests around the country, often several times a week. The group pickets institutions and individuals they think support homosexuality or otherwise subvert what they believe is God’s law.

The group caught my attention earlier this year when it protested a funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq because God is punishing America for allowing homosexuality.

In fact, WBC members say that “God’s hatred is one of His holy attributes” and that their picketing is a form of preaching to a “doomed” country unable to hear their message in any other way, according to the JDL's website. It continues:

The primary goal of the Westboro Baptist Church, led by Fred Phelps, appears to be garnering publicity for itself and its message. For this reason, the group directs its efforts at events that have attracted heavy news coverage, like the deaths of soldiers killed in wars or the victims of well-publicized accidents, or at venues, such as high schools, which are likely to generate large counter-protests and community outrage. Many of its protests are held in response to events that have generated at least local media coverage, as in an April 2009 protest of the staging of the musical “Rent” at a high school in Newport Beach, California, which had been the subject of local controversy. ..

To create further attention, the group produces music videos with titles like “God hates the world” or “Santa Claus Will Take You to Hell” and maintains Web sites with names like GodHatesAmerica and GodHatesFags, all designed to inflame the passions of viewers. One of these Web sites includes a “media room,” with links to “broadcast quality resolution video files of our picketing ministry.”

In America freedom of speech and assembly is constitutionally protected. These fanatics are pushing the legal envelope. They must be exposed for what they are. I'm sorry. I'm not an ostrich. I can't stick my head in the ground and make believe they don't exist even though the mere mention of them furthers their cause.

Thing is, I'm not gay, Jewish nor all that religious. When I see evil perpetuated, I will call it out. Period. End of post.

About My View

Welcome: An intelligent and articulate discussion is desired in these days of partisan politics. These postings are commentary on national politics, current events, sports and any other stuff that generates civil conversation. My career in the newspaper business extends more than 25 years at the Klamath Falls Hearld & News, Tustin News, Orange Daily News, Santa Ana Register and San Diego Evening Tribune. Son of a vegetable farmer, I was raised in the predominately Mexican village of San Juan Capistrano. At age 11, my family moved to the nearby coastal city of Laguna Beach where body surfing became my favorite sport. I attended the private Webb School of California near Pomona. I graduated majoring in political science at the University of California at Davis. After my newspaper career, I became a landscape contractor in San Diego for 10 years and then groundskeeper for a RV resort on the bank of the Rogue River seven miles east of Gold Beach, Ore. I resumed my writing career, first with emails, and later launching this blogsite in 2007.